A IS FOR ALIBI, BY Sue Grafton

Review of author's technique:

Sue Grafton writes in a way pleasurable to the reader. Grafton obviously lives vicariously through her Kinsey Millhone character, and describes Kinsey's life in the first person in such detail it has drawn me into the novel more than any motion picture could. This could be best demonstrated straight away in A Is for Alibi--the first in the Millhone series--by her making coffee for a new client:

Page 3: [She had asked Nikki Fife...]
"Would you like some coffee?
"She nodded almost imperceptibly. I pulled out the coffee-pot from the bottom of the file cabinet and filled it from the Sparklets water bottle behind the door. I liked it that she didn't protest the trouble I was going to. I put in a filter paper and ground coffee and plugged in the pot. The gurgling sound was comforting, like a pump in an aquarium."

It is this descriptive writing that captures your mind--at least ...my mind--and I'm lost to this world and live in the story, involved in this life of this young woman investigator: seeing her visitor whose hair "...had grown out to its natural shade, a brown so pale that it appeared nearly colorless."

You see her office; her client; and move with her as she makes the coffee and we listen to that gurgling sound we are so accustomed to hearing in our own kitchens and from now on be thinking of it as sounding like an aquarium pump.

Through reviewing Grafton, and through just having reread an Anne Tyler book, I see why I like these two authors way of writing. Their words capture our imagination and take us out of our lives and into theirs better than most writers.

To me, this is what a novel is all about--to take one away on an adventurous journey into another's life--a vacation where one can shrug off her own life with the ease of taking off a coat, and no tedious packing of bags necessary.

Like with the story of "The Beauty and the Beast, where the only way Belle could return to her world would be a turn of a magic ring; we too can be exported from world to world at any time by merely opening a book, reading from where we last left off, and closing it, marking the spot where this reader's vicarious life left off when our real world infringed upon my reading time.

The Millhone stories do that for me, so before I review the book at book club, I'll want to read this report of that phenomena--our most desirable reason to read anything in the first place: ...to be carried away in our own imagination... to almost get lost in some great author's storytelling. What a blessing authors are, who can export us in this way! A true vacation is when one can leave one's own life behind and walk into another's life like we were peeking over their shoulder, or stepping into their skin.

On NPR's All Things Considered...

They were talking about a writing contest for a short story [600 words or less] in which the first sentence has to be, "The nurse left work at five o'clock..." Being a nurse, that would have been either a few hours after the first shift ended or a few hours into the second shift. I tried my hand at writing something out of my experience of being a 3 p.m. through 11 p.m. nurse, but it was too negative, so something contrary and fun occurred to me. I'd heard that it is bad writing to write with too many clichés, so I looked up a website that had every saying you could think of, and constructed the following... Which I will NOT submit for their stiff rules against any plagiarism.We will call this piece,

THE NURSE LEFT WORK AT FIVE O'CLOCK:

The nurse left work at five o'clock. Most of the patients would just pull at her heartstrings. But she felt like they were draining the life out of her. She was on an emotional roller coaster. When she got this job she thought she had found her niche in life; now she could see the handwriting on the wall. There was no place for her here. Heaven help her if she stayed, as the powers that be had a heart of stone. Though into each life some rain must fall, her theory was to put up her umbrella once it started. She left work just two hours into her shift. She felt she was abandoning ship, but, too long had she thought she was between a rock and a hard place, and this was her chance to leap before she looked... to toss her cares to the wind. She felt like something was hanging over her head. The shift nurses seemed to do nothing but to air their dirty laundry. They were gunning for a scapegoat, and Beth didn't want to be the goat.

If she stayed at work any longer it would have been like waiting for the other shoe to drop. She figured she'd bite the bullet and quit before being fired. Earlier, when she awoke that morning to smell the coffee, she also realized she never had stopped to smell the roses. Her time was running out. It had taken a toll on her. She had been waiting for her ship to come in, and now she was just waiting for a bus in the rain. The bus arrived, rattling like an empty truck. The driver looked like he never met a doughnut he didn't like. He drove his bus with the theory that slow and steady wins the race. He knew his route like the back of his hand, and knew what stop was hers without her having to signal. Her house was only a stone's throw away from the curb. That was nice, as her feet felt like those of a cat on a hot tin roof. She couldn't wait to get off her feet and start her new occupation of being a couch potato.

Weeks later Beth realized that she had missed the boat, and that today was the first day for the rest of her life, and there is no time like the present to strike while the iron is hot. There was more to life than meets the eye. In never putting off to tomorrow what she could do today, Beth decided to take her savings and travel.

She knew that the rolling stone gathered no moss and booked a ride on a slow boat to China. However, once she was aboard ship, she realized she had nothing to write home about. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so she got off at the first stop to lead a life of adventure. What a wake up call. Soon she was having more fun than a barrel of monkeys. She felt great about sowing her wild oats, and decided it would be a cold day in hell when she would ever return to the hum drum life she used to lead. Now the moral of the story was that life has got to be more than one cliché after another.

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Too bad, I'll never know if I would have won or NOT. ;-)

Newt's on Fox TV Channel?

I'm not a great cartoonist, but just wanted you to know my thoughts when I think there should be newts out on the trail, and for some reason they aren't there. I think they're home watching TV.

Is The Damselfly's Mate a Knightfly?

I loved the dragonflies and 'sewing needles,' as we called them as kids. It really wasn't until recently when I was in the E.L. Rose Conservancy's photo contest (ww.elrose.org) that I found out that the 'sewing needles' were called damselflies. Someone had taken a picture of one. I'm sure I've taken at least three pictures of the same, and even entered one long ago at the Harford Fair, not knowing its name.

To us children, the dragonflies were harmless, but the sewing needles would sew up your mouth if you swore. See, back in the 1940s we too had our urban (or rural) legends. It would be so tempting to swear just to see if that impossible threat was true. A child likes danger (did I say 'child'?) as the thrill of getting close to the edge of endangering oneself gives one a 'rush.'

This morning I saw an all black 'sewing needle.' Thinking the damselfly comes only with a bright metallic turquoise body, I figured this was a different kind of 'fly.' Then, to my amazement, a damselfly buzzed it--like a car would almost scrape another to challenge to a drag race. I thought, "Hmm, she doesn't like other sewing needles in her airspace." They then began a 'catch me if you can' game of tag. I thought it's either going to end up in a fight, or she'll scare the other off. But no... the tail of the damselfly caught the black one right where the head joins the thorax... the nape of its neck, if they had necks. Then I realized that either the damselfly is the male, and the other is the 'dame' or female... the black one. I looked it up and the female is the less brightly colored.

Watching this I almost said out loud, "Oh, they are fu....., Oops, they are 'mating'... [Didn't want them to sew up my mouth]. ;-)
[Forgive me... I was just being funny!]

In wanting to take their pictures... first this new black damselfly; then both battling in the air, and then when they settled on a bush, mating, I guess I made them nervous. Something strange happened. Those flies can fly while mating, and flew off the bush and settled on my back. I thought they were going to spend the day on my back, and I tried to get them to fly again by going close to an object as tall as my back. I couldn't see them without my camera on them and leaning my head forward to catch the view of them on my back... and snapped a picture with the sign/object that was back level. A sign that prohibited everything else on the property except mating... of course, that would be after trespassing, wouldn't it?. They then took off on different courses... with smiles on their faces, I'm sure.

The reason I thought they may be at it for hours is because I had a friend in Endwell, N.Y., Nancy. We were telephone buddies when we needed adult conversation as our children were young at the time. She called me one day and talked about these mating bugs on her dining room window the day before. She was trying to do her housework, and it bothered her--each time she went through that room they were still at it all afternoon. She said, "When Ralph came home from work I told him about those bugs, and he could see I was angry. He told me I should have gone outside and shooed them away. I told him it wasn't the point. They were there all afternoon!! 'So what,' he says back to me. I said, They were there mating for hours, and you can't last five minutes?!"

AN ODE TO MY BROTHER JAIRUS



Honoring my Brother Jerry, for His Seventieth Birthday:

Parents keep you safe in a crib
In Jerry climbed--just a year older
--He taught me everything he knew
and freed me from its bars.

Parents teach you to walk
Jerry taught me to run free
Together we climbed trees,
Explored the woods
Discovered walking sticks,
grasshoppers, oak galls.

Parents wash you clean
Jerry had us barefoot in mud,
jumping the icy brook,
vaulting with beanpoles.
Damming the brook,
Flooding the field.
Floating rafts; skipping stones...
Flying kites; digging in sandbank
across from our house.

"I dug a hole to the North Pole, he said.
"Shake hands with Santa Claus."
I reached in one end--
And he the other.
Sure enough, I shook hands with "Santa."
But I caught on to his cleverness...
Learning there are no short cuts to Christmas.

Our curiosity gave birth to wonder--
A wonder we held forever:
Like discovering a hibernating toad
When digging into the hill in spring.

Another Spring, on the way home from school
Jerry discovered some motherless baby squirrels
On a tree near our house.
Mom let us take them in;
Calling the Science Museum for instructions.
"Soak bread in milk," they said.
Mom hated slurping sounds.
Jerry and I looked at each other
trying not to laugh at Mom
Having to put up with the slurping squirrels.

Rain meant "Water Works"
and we'd play in the puddles
sailing balsa boats...
...All kinds of weather were excuses for fun.

Rain. Sunshine. Sleet. Snow.
...Patter on an umbrella.
...A walk in the sun across Tomato Field to Hall's spring.
"Stoop down so Old Lady Hall doesn't see us."

Snow meant sliding down Tomato Hill
To the base of Potato Hill...
Up we'd climb Potato Hill,
and slide back...
..."Careful not to miss the bridge below...
and end up in the brook."

We loved the wind... (and still do).
We would climb high to the top
and ride the sway of the trees.
...Jerry took it a step further:
"Look, Jo--Hold on to the top
And JUMP OUT!"

I watched as he bobbed gently to the ground.
I tried it too... What a ride!
Then he tried a young oak.
Jumped out and "CRACK!" (The top broke)
He went sailing down with a thud
The top of the tree still in his hands.

We rode birch tree horses
And had Cowboy hats,
And we each had twin holsters
With cap guns we could twirl on our fingers,
and shoot as fast as our hero, Roy Rogers

We raised ducks together;
and mice we saved from cats;
and took our companion dogs;
for a walk or a run through the fields,
or hide in the tall grass to see if our
collie, Jeanie, could find us... She always did.

To keep us warm in winter
if we were lucky we could get
the cats to climb under the covers
and sleep warming our feet.

The bedrooms were without radiators
And we'd run down to the kitchen
In our PJs in the morning and
Dress by the old wrought iron stove.

Winter was fun on ice
And we learned to skate
on double runged skates
Carefully on the low field
at the edge of the brook
often crashing through tiddly ice,
To the muddy field below,
and have to go home to
change into something dry.

Later years, on real skates
We skated on ponds in the pines
Or the sand pits.
"Jerry! Watch me do a figure eight"
And I'd try. He'd be more
interested in hitting a puck
with a hockey stick.

Our town was a smelly one:
The South wind smelled of the Tanneries
The North wind,
Of the Chemical Works
Of the piggeries
if from the East.
The West Wind was
the only sweet wind.

There were sand pits in Woburn
Where they'd dig out sand
for cement for construction
as well as sand for sand boxes
Beautiful yellow sand everywhere,
Just 6 inches below the top soil.

We knew how to be careful
When playing there:
Mom warned us about cave ins.
We learned about the sand pits so well...
We could run and jump without looking.
"...Geronimo!"
and fall many feet into soft sand...
...except one day when they dug it out
leaving a cliff of clay just where my
back hit the bank... and knocked
the wind out of me.

I was sure I was dying... unable to
breathe... even Jerry was worried.
Then Finally, a croaky breath inward,
"Ohhhhhhh!"
I learned my lesson in life:
"Look before you leap."

Even littered beer cans were fun,
Squashed on our foot sideways;
What a beautiful racket!
"CLOMP...CLOMP...CLOMP"
Noiser on Merrimac Street.
We sounded like shod horses.
Noise and laughter...
Who could stomp the loudest!

Hide-n-go-seek
Find a good place
They can't find me
"Olley-Olley in Free!
And often I won...
unless Jerry was it, as...
He taught me all the best places.

Billy, Shelia, and Donny McHugh
Ronnie Hatfield, and Richy Butler too...
"Friends of our childhood.
Come out to play
Whether 7 or 70
Our childhood's never far away!"
~~~~





"HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the brother.
Who taught me to wonder
and how to live a wonderful life.

"Thank You for my Sunshine Years
You made my childhood a sunny life,
...A time I carry with me always
Just a memory away."

I love you,
Mary Jo

[Reading this at his surprise party at the new Assembly of God church in Vestal, I even strapped on some squashed beer cans to emphasize that part of the ode. The modern ones don't stick to the shoes like the old tin beer cans that had to be opened with a 'church key'. It wasn't quite a poem, but a tribute to him for giving his sister such a happy foundation in life. This group was the most down to earth, and fun loving group, most of them being members of that Church. It proved to me that Christianity can be fun. Maybe that group is a happy one because of my brother, who has forever been himself, brought a spontaneity and childlike enthusiasm to every group with which he's become a member, and everyone with whom he's become a friend. As a gift to him, others wrote poems, prose, and even sang a song one wrote dedicated to him called "Jerry", showing he has brought them happiness and has influenced their lives. It made me realize what a great guy he really is, and how God can use a Peter Pan personality to bring people closer to Him, proving that God wants life to be filled with humor as well as love.]


Jerry wearing one of the funny gifts he received.